Draft Decree Guiding Extended Producer Responsibility

The extended producers' responsibility or 'polluter pays principle' is expected to impact manufacturers and importers active in Vietnam by imposing various financial and administrative burdens. It applies to both recyclable products and packaging and waste treatment. It likely will apply as of 1 January 2023.

LEGAL UPDATE

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is defined as an environmental policy approach in which a producer's responsibility for a product is extended to the waste stage of that product's life cycle. The EPR concept is not new in Vietnamese legislation. It was introduced in the 2005 Law on Environmental Protection and is now adopted under Decision No. 16/2015/QD-TTg providing regulations on recall and treatment of discarded products. However, the current legal framework does not set out a mandatory recycling quota for companies. It is, among others, the reason why the EPR has not been implemented by most manufacturers and importers in Vietnam so